How the new tower planned for Archway could look

A 27-STOREY skyscraper of student digs will loom over Archway if plans to redevelop long-empty university buildings on Highgate Hill are given the green light.

The tower – which some critics have likened to the Eye of Sauron from Lord of the Rings due to its striking scale – would replace former medical training buildings behind Navigator Square, and stand 10 storeys higher than the Archway Tower above the tube station.

The planned building will consist of 242 student studios. Renovations to other historic buildings on the Archway Campus site will provide a further 178 new homes – around half at affordable rates.

But the skyline-changing scale of the project has left existing residents concerned.

Natasha England who lives off Highgate Hill said: “We really don’t know what [the tower] will be like, but we know the impact will be huge and we will have to live with it for the rest of our lives. Nobody likes the fact that it has been left empty for so long but I just think this proposal doesn’t suit anybody’s needs.”

Developer SevenCapital bought the Archway Campus site from the Peabody housing association in 2021 and consulted residents on its first set of plans – originally for a 36-storey tower – in 2023. It submitted a planning application to the council last week.

This has been met with a petition to block the scheme set up by residents’ group Stop Archway Campus. It has now reached 1,500 signatures.

The group includes Lidyard Road resident Mark Davies, whose garden will be “eyeball to eyeball” with the new development.

“We’re not against affordable housing – we’re not nimbys, we’re yimbys. But this will change the character of Archway forever. It’s an enormous change.”

Mr Davies said that while residents have different opinions about why the new Archway Campus will be so disastrous – over­shadow­ing from the tower, damage to the historic buildings, overcrowding at Archway tube station – they are generally united against the proposals.

Better Archway Forum member Kate Calvert said: “They’re not listening to what people want and it’s not meeting any local need.”

She added that developers must not be allowed to backtrack on the amount of affordable housing they provide later down the line.

The site has stood unused for 12 years.

Councillor Martin Klute, chair of Islington’s planning committee, told the Tribune that SevenCapital had yet to offer a package of community benefits big enough to win the council’s blessing.

“That tower is very big, so there will have to be some pretty big positives to justify it,” he said.

The developer will need to show that it can gen­er­ate enough money from the scheme to finance the promised social housing and other public benefits, like community rooms or affordable office space.

SevenCapital did not respond to a request for comment but its website said: “We have developed our design in consultation with the London borough of Islington, local residents and other key stakeholders for almost two years.

“The designer’s intent has been to provide a deliberately tall, slim, elegant tower that provides generous public realm to improve residential amenity, accessibility and connectivity across the site.”